


Hush Child

by sinistrocular



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers for 1x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 10:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1262239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistrocular/pseuds/sinistrocular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Heard from Constance you sang to Henry,” Porthos said from his place propped up on pillows, watching as lips belonging to a dark-haired head moved down his chest and peppered well-known scars with kisses.</p>
<p>Since they both decided to retire early, Porthos found comfort in Aramis’s company again, even if the latter’s desire for affection burned brighter than it had since Marsac died. In the few days before Marie Medici brought her ilk to Paris, the kisses had felt little more than apologies against his chest, each slow and intense as a benediction. Tonight they dwelled on his skin as bright sunspots that burned with Aramis’s natural ardor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hush Child

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously inspired by 1x06. Very dialogue heavy, so it's a bit different from my other work. This kind of ran away from me fast.
> 
> Mood music: ["Lullaby For An Anxious Child" by Sting](http://youtu.be/5SFzLKCHedE).

“Heard from Constance you sang to Henry,” Porthos said from his place propped up on pillows, watching as lips belonging to a dark-haired head moved down his chest and peppered well-known scars with kisses.

Since they both decided to retire early, Porthos found comfort in Aramis’s company again, even if the latter’s desire for affection burned brighter than it had since Marsac died. In the few days before Marie Medici brought her ilk to Paris, the kisses had felt little more than apologies against his chest, each slow and intense as a benediction. Tonight they dwelled on his skin as bright sunspots that burned with Aramis’s natural ardor. 

“Did you?” Aramis looked up from his work as his hands trailed lower, working at the laces of Porthos’s breeches with a smirk.

A stroke of Aramis’s hand over Porthos’s half-hard cock earned a groan but not an escape from the topic of conversation.

“That’s not fair, you know.” Porthos almost regretted the way the fire in his belly blazed hotter at such a simple thing; quite soon, conversation and rational thinking would prove impossible.

Aramis certainly knew what he was doing, Porthos could not deny that, but he also could not deny the quiet anger that settled in his heart. How many times had Aramis distracted him from serious conversations, from appearing vulnerable before him? And how many times had Porthos told him to talk to him, open, without a guard and without distraction?

“I’ve no idea what you mean.” Aramis followed the trail of curls down the center of Porthos’s body with his mouth, his tongue working in magnificent, tantalizing circles.

That is until Porthos reached down to snare Aramis by his hair, fingers laced so tight through thick tendrils that their owner winced.

“Stop for just a second, would you?” Porthos hated the way his voice sounded in that moment: heavy with lust and weak to the desire to let the other musketeer back to his work. However, his body hated him more, if the throbbing in his gut was any signal. 

But, it worked, for Aramis glanced up from his task, even if with a suddenly shuttered expression.

“I think you would much enjoy this conversation after I finish,” Aramis insisted, but kept those sinfully skilled hands still for now.

Oh and Porthos was quite inclined to agree, or at least his cock was, but he wanted to talk before he lost any ideas to the pleasure of Aramis’s mouth. 

And before Aramis could artfully dance out of his reach. 

Recently, the man had grown distant, his smiles less genuine, their conversations less fruitful. Of course, Porthos knew Aramis talked of serious matters, but with everyone else it seemed. Athos, D’artagnan, Constance even got more out of him than Porthos could these days. Perhaps by the time Aramis reached the privacy of their quarters, he had exhausted all of his emotional energy for the day, or otherwise wanted Porthos’s moans to soothe the tears in his soul. Since the visit from the Duke of Savoy, Aramis had been different around him and tonight only proved that.

“We’re havin’ it now,” Porthos grunted in return, reigning in any thoughts of Aramis’s mouth and how perfectly hot and tight it always felt around his cock.

With a sigh, Aramis leaned away from his skin and Porthos immediately missed the other’s hot breath against him, how it danced across his nerves and sent sparks flying through him.

No, focus. Porthos, focus. He shut his eyes and cleared his throat, breathing through the stream of mental images that pressed against his mind at a feverish pace.

“Porthos?”

Porthos shook his head again, his concentration returning in scant bits and pieces around the many memories of sticky skin and dark pupils wide with desire.

“I can get you off in a minute, it’ll be easier t—“ He heard Aramis and a shifting of a body before warm hands pressed to the edges of his breeches again.

Somehow, that broke something inside Porthos, deep underneath his defenses where he never imagined Aramis would ever hurt him. That Aramis could ever believe Porthos only wanted a quick fuck or a messy end stoked that silent anger of before into a furious blaze.

“I asked you to _stop_ ,” Porthos snapped before he could stop himself, his eyes once again opening just in time to see Aramis go rigid before he drew away entirely, off the bed, well out of reach. 

In an instant, Porthos’s temper cooled, but Aramis already began collecting his shirt from the floor.

“Aramis, it’s not—” Porthos began before cutting himself off. Why could he not think straight? What was it about the past few weeks that stemmed his tongue?

“It’s not _what_ , Porthos?” Aramis’s arched high again and far too sugary sweet, as if talking to a complete stranger.

And Porthos finally realized the source of his frustration as he stared up at Aramis; the other man felt like a stranger, like someone who would not sit and talk to him about his troubles, who would not open up like he had in the past. Perhaps Aramis had talked with Athos and D’artagnan, true, but nothing like the long hours he had spent with Porthos for countless nights before the Duke of Savoy came to France. Where few secrets had lain before, there now seemed dozens spread between them like a forsaken graveyard dedicated to their relationship.

“Aramis,” he said slowly and his brows knit as a clarity graced him. And not only because his erection stopped throbbing so painfully against the fabric of his breeches.

“It’s not Aramis,” Aramis tutted, both eyebrows raised in a mockery of amusement. “Yes, I suppose Aramis can’t be Aramis, that would be unheard of.”

Aramis was hurting, that much Porthos could see now, not only for the rejection a moment ago. No, his friend had been bleeding out for weeks now and Porthos only just now saw it for his own eyes. With a sigh, Aramis shook his head and tugged his suspenders over his shoulders and Porthos knew that if he let the man walk out the door, he would not walk back through it ever again. Of course, Aramis would pretend niceties up and down the block, smile when asked to, make certain Athos and D’artagnan saw nothing of it, but eventually he would stop talking to Porthos, would stop riding beside him. In due time, they would truly become strangers if Porthos allowed Aramis to escape this night.

With a sudden burst of fear, Porthos sat up and wrapped his fingers around his lover’s wrist. The glare that met him would have scared a lesser man.

“ ‘Like to talk to you is all,” Porthos chose his words carefully, buried the anger beneath the earnest desire to talk to Aramis like they had so many times before.

Aramis watched him, like a prisoner might his jailer, like a lay man his clergy, like a sentenced man his executioner. Porthos had seen him wear the expression once at the market, while considering the cost of good meat against his pay, except this time he weighed Porthos’s soul against his trust in them. There had been so many failed ventures in love before, Porthos knew: a failed betrothal at sixteen, Marsac on the border of Savoy, Adele’s choice of the Cardinal, and now, seemingly, Porthos pushed him away while they were in the middle of an intimate act. Silently, Porthos cursed his temper, for not thinking that perhaps Aramis _needed_ to please and pleasure, to reassure himself with the heated moans and words that fell from Porthos’s mouth unbidden but not unwelcome. 

When Aramis glanced away, a weight pressed against Porthos’s chest, a door slammed on his heart, and he shut his eyes again, not wanting to watch his lover and confidante leave. It was finished, everything they had built in slow steps, every delicate strand of trust ripped to pieces, every moment in candlelight gone up in flames. Each fiber of his body screamed in an agony he could never have fathomed before, crushed and torn and—

The bed dipped beside him.

The bed dipped beside him and a hand laid over the one still wrapped around a bony wrist and Porthos’s eyes snapped back open to confirm that it was indeed Aramis who added his weight to the bed. His friend looked over at him, guard pulled down, defenses tugged back, leaving a quite vulnerable core wide open before Porthos. Aramis had weighed Porthos and found him worth the risk.

“What would you like to talk about?” The manic pace of Aramis’s words disappeared along with the fevered amusement and instead his voice seemed almost naked without any joking lilt.

“ ‘bout the last few weeks,” Porthos replied as his fingers gently loosed from around Aramis’s wrist, smoothing down across his palm instead and rubbing in small circles. “ ‘ bout _this_ one, too, with Agnes.”

Aramis sighed softly and his mouth opened before he closed it again without a single spoken word, as if trying to find a place to start. Instead of forcing anything, Porthos simply remained a steady presence, taking Aramis’s hand in his to properly massage it. A heavy pause hung between them and Porthos wondered if his friend would speak at all. 

“I’ve been lonely, these few weeks,” Aramis admitted when Porthos truly began to doubt. “It’s not you. Well, it’s partially you but more me than you, I think.”

Nodding, Porthos worked his thumbs into pads of Aramis’s fingers, forcing himself to remain silent so the other man could say as much or as little as he needed to without feeling threatened.

With a hint of surprise sneaking into his expression, Aramis continued, “Since Marsac. He… I loved him. A long time ago. Don’t think it’ll ever quite go away, really. But he chose to die instead of… instead of trying to fix anything. That was _his_ solution to the problem.”

Porthos could still quite clearly remember when Aramis had come to him after, looking like a drowned rat, and kissed away any doubts he may have had about their relationship. However, the tone of the night or the week after had not changed much from the solemn entrance of the bedraggled soldier, his bones heavy not only with the rainwater but grief as well.

“And then the matter with the Court of Miracles.” Somehow Aramis quieted further as he shook his head.

“I don’t blame you for that,” Porthos interjected, unable to stop himself this time. “He wouldn’t’ve stopped if you weren’t there. Wouldn’t’ve stopped until he was dead.”

That, at least, Charon and Marsac had in common; they both needed something to end their suffering and injustice and both had chosen death over living to see amends made.

“You don’t know that,” Aramis replied high and thready, but Porthos wondered if the guilt existed entirely because he killed Charon or if Marsac still lingered in his thoughts. “He could’ve— I don’t know, Porthos, he could have led a full life. Like you have.”

With a shake of his head, “Charon’s not like me.”

His words echoed in the room around them and Porthos clenched his jaw against the urge to say it again. Perhaps he never would entirely leave the Court of Miracles behind. Some days, though, he wondered if others would say the same, or if Aramis would change his mind about him simply because he grew up there or did not know his birthday. The warm hands underneath his disappeared for a moment while Porthos let his thoughts run away, but as soon as he noticed their absence, he felt them on his cheek.

“I’m not the only one who needs to talk tonight,” Aramis noted, but did not force the issue when Porthos shook his head.

“In the morning,” he replied quickly, his words marked and assuring that they would indeed talk about his problems as well, to return an equilibrium to their friendship. “What about Agnes?”

Aramis opened his mouth in a silent _ah_ and nodded slowly. “She asked if I ever knew love. And if I was alone.”

In his chest, Porthos’s heart clenched tight once more, a spike of pain slicing through him even as the fingers on his cheek never moved.

“I told her of my betrothal,” Aramis continued with a sigh. “But I couldn’t tell her of you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t know where to start. We’ve been bedmates and lovers and friends and everything in between, but she has something I don’t.”

Before Porthos could say anything, Aramis amended, “And I don’t mean a child. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

With a sigh of relief, Porthos nodded a few times, doing what he could to stay silent once more. Of everything Aramis had spoken already, this was likely the core of the matter, the wound that had festered into an intolerable pain. The man had such skill with a needle but could hardly sew himself up. Porthos could, though, and he would use every salve in his repertoire to ease the pain.

“She loves Phillipe.” Aramis’s hand slid down to cup Porthos’s jaw, a steady warmth gracing his gaze again. “She’ll love him until the day she dies. And he did the same.”

There it was, laid plain for Porthos just how much Aramis loved him, how much he wanted to be loved like that in return. The question in the other man’s eyes should have angered Porthos as earlier, but such an emotion did not belong here in their quarters, in their _home_ that they made together. For as dirty as it got at times, every speck of mud made it theirs and only theirs. Every drop of blood, every scuff mark, every torn curtain, all of it belonged to them. The Court of Miracles had never gleamed like a palace, but Porthos did not leave it for the dust.

Porthos first answered Aramis with a kiss, nothing grand or elaborate, but still intrinsically him in its confidence.

“I’d go to Hell and back for you, you know that, right?” Porthos closed his hand over his companion’s once more. “ ’d even kill the Cardinal if you wanted.” 

“But you won’t doubt Captain Treville’s honor.” Aramis riposted too quickly to have not thought about the matter before this moment. “Not for me.”

“It wasn’t going to be for you, was it,” Porthos replied, not allowing the words to hang in the air for too long. “It was going to be for Marsac. You were asking me to do it for Marsac. ‘f you’d come to me without him, I’d’ve believed you more.”

Falling silent once more, Aramis seemed to chew on the thought, like a child trying a new food. He tasted it, let it sit on his tongue before, at long last, he swallowed it down with no small measure of trust. And, with that, the matter seemed settled, or at least to the satisfaction of Porthos. Aramis nodded, even as he sagged with the sudden release of a weight from his soul and Porthos did not blame him for the exhaustion that threatened to take him under.

“C’mon, time for bed.” Porthos released any hold on Aramis, leaving him the choice to stay or go.

Thankfully, Aramis did not withdraw, did not pull away, and instead accepted the invitation to stay the night. The air between them grew lighter and Porthos himself breathed easier than he had in weeks.

There was but one more matter for the night before they could both settle down into sleep.

“I’ve never heard you sing before,” Porthos explained as they settled against each other underneath the sheets. “ ’s all I was askin’.” 

With a soft smile, Aramis snorted and shook his head, running his fingers through Porthos’s tight curls. “A child can’t recognize a deaf man’s melody from a masterpiece.”

“Neither can I,” Porthos replied with a grin, hoping that Aramis would feel comfortable with a few words at least. 

“I hope that’s not a word of confidence to my singing abilities.” Aramis laughed even as his expression softened.

At first Aramis hummed a low, clumsy string of notes, warming Porthos in a way no stiff drink ever could. The fingers in his hair did not cease their gentle, soothing circles either and quickly Porthos realized that Aramis planned for him to fall asleep before the chance to hear him sing.

“Not fair,” Porthos grumbled as his own exhaustion began to win against the will to stay awake to hear Aramis.

A chuckle interrupted the lullaby only briefly before words followed, “ _Michel climbed up an apple tree. The branch it broke, snapped with a crack. Oh where is Michel? Flat on his back. Get up, get up, get up and show…_ ”

Before sleep took him, Porthos wondered why Aramis would sing such a thing to a baby.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a one-shot.
> 
> I was about halfway through the second part of the Aramis/Marsac two-shot when I watched 1x06 and this idea hit me. The second half of Heroes should be up in the next couple days, as well as some more Aramis/Porthos hurt/comfort.


End file.
